Central Highlands: Coffee fruit falls en masse

Recently, due to prolonged rain and high humidity, fungi have appeared, causing many coffee areas in the Central Highlands to lose young fruit. This has made farmers restless.

Dak Lak is the province with the largest coffee area in the Central Highlands. Although there are no statistics on the area of ​​coffee trees with young fruit falling, according to the feedback of households, many coffee gardens have been and are experiencing fruit drop disease caused by fungus.

Mr. Le Van Tam, in Hoa Dong commune (Krong Pac district), shared: “My family has 7 sao of coffee trees in the young fruit stage, but for about a month now, the fruit has been falling, and every time there is a shower, a lot of fruit falls. If this situation continues, this year's yield will definitely be affected. Currently, I am looking to buy pesticides to spray, but it is not working.”

Also in Hoa Dong commune, not far from Mr. Tam's house, Mr. Bui Thanh Le is spraying pesticides on his coffee garden. Mr. Le said: "Recently, due to prolonged rain and high humidity, fungi have appeared, causing coffee to drop fruit en masse. Through observation, I see that the symptoms on the fruit stalks gradually turn black, then a white film covers them, clusters of fruit rot and fall en masse... If this continues, the Central Highlands will have to suffer another coffee crop failure this year."

According to our observations, in Mr. Le's coffee garden, among the remaining green fruit clusters are black stem marks, traces of fruit drop. Many fruit trees have fallen off completely, leaving only branches and leaves, the fruit drop rate is up to 10-15%.

Not only in Dak Lak, Lam Dong is also a locality with a relatively large area of ​​coffee fruit loss. According to the Plant Protection Department of Lam Dong province, in Tam Bo commune (Di Linh district) alone, 1,077 hectares of coffee fruit loss occurred, of which 150 hectares were infected with mealybugs at an average level, with a damage rate of 11.5%, and some trees were severely damaged. The remaining 777 hectares were slightly damaged by mealybugs (rate below 7.5%). In addition, in Hiep Thanh II village (Tam Bo commune), most people cultivate on land with a high proportion of rocks and a thin arable layer. Currently, coffee is in the stage of accumulating dry matter into the seeds, in great need of nutrients, and if not provided promptly, the fruit will fall.

In Dak Nong, the situation of coffee fruit falling off also appeared sporadically in the gardens of many farmers, causing coffee growers to face a failed crop, combined with low productivity due to the high rate of old trees, the expected coffee output in the 2014 - 2015 crop year is much lower than the previous crop year. In districts such as Cu Jut, Dak Song, Dak Mil, Krong No..., the major coffee growing areas of the province, the rate of fruit falling off is up to 20-30%, even up to 40% in many places. According to some households, the cause of the above situation may be due to complicated weather, prolonged hot weather, followed by continuous rain causing stem rot and fruit falling off.

According to the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (Vicofa), the reason for the coffee tree dropping fruit is that the flowering period is exposed to prolonged drought from the beginning of the year to the end of June. This is a favorable condition for the development of mealybugs. The flowering period is again exposed to prolonged drought, but when the fruit sets, the coffee continues to be exposed to heavy rain, causing the young fruit to become infected with black fungus on the stem and fall off.

Thus, in the 2014-2015 crop year, farmers in the Central Highlands once again have to face a poor coffee crop. They are extremely insecure and worried because their income is not enough to cover the costs of care, fertilization, etc.; meanwhile, the price of coffee beans in the area is unstable. This can easily lead to a situation where people rush to cut down coffee trees to plant other crops, greatly affecting the sustainable development of the Vietnamese coffee industry in general and the Central Highlands in particular.

According to rural economy